All VPN providers claim to be security experts, but few can match Swiss-based Proton’s experience and track record. The company has run popular end-to-end encrypted email service Proton Mail since 2014, and its other products include a secure calendar and encrypted cloud storage.

Proton VPN's network offers 1,700+ servers across 64 countries. Most servers are in Europe and North America, but there are also locations in Australia, Brazil, Columbia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea and more.

Proton VPN owns and manages its own servers, too, and they're connected to the internet using the company's own network. Apart from giving Proton VPN great control over how the service is set up and managed, it's clear this isn't some shell company making profits from reselling other people's kit: there are real resources and expertise here.

• Want to try ProtonVPN? Check out the website here

You can see benefits of that control in Proton VPN's Secure Core, a smart technology which routes traffic through multiple servers before it leaves the network (meaning that even high-tech snoopers monitoring an exit server won't be able to trace individual users).

A lengthy feature list ensures the service scores just about everywhere. Proton VPN is P2P-friendly, supports up to 10 simultaneous connections, has a kill switch, DNS leak protection and built-in Tor support for accessing Onion sites. A versatile split tunneling system allows you to route specific app or destination IP traffic outside of the VPN, and WireGuard support aims to get you the best possible performance.

Elsewhere, the DNS-based NetShield web filter blocks malware, ads and trackers.  There are now native apps for Windows, Android, Mac and iOS to enable using ProtonVPN on almost anything. Oh, and they're open source and audited, too.

The most obvious change since our last look at the service is Proton’s big rebrand. There’s a mildly new name (Proton VPN, rather than ProtonVPN), and a visual overhaul for the apps, with a glossy new look and feel. 

The most important technical addition is the arrival of Stealth, a brand new protocol which aims to bypass VPN blocks and get you online in even the most privacy-unfriendly countries. Some providers claim to have a similar feature, but usually it's just a tweaked version of a standard protocol (typically OpenVPN.) Proton VPN says Stealth is 'designed from the ground up' to outperform the existing solutions, and claims that 'with Stealth enabled, your Proton VPN connection will be almost completely undetectable.' 

It's too early to tell how Stealth compares in real-world use, but if you're heading off to China or anywhere else that blocks VPNs, you can test it with Proton VPN's free Mac, Android and iOS apps (Windows support is on the way.)

Elsewhere, the Windows app now includes port forwarding, improving P2P speeds. The underpowered Proton Basic plan has been dropped, and you can now opt to buy the VPN and all Proton’s other services in a new security suite.

Proton VPN pricing

The Proton VPN Plus plan delivers all the features we've described above, covers 10 devices, and can be yours for $9.99 billed monthly, $5.99 on the annual plan, or $4.99 over two years. That's a little above average, and you can get very capable VPNs for less (Private Internet Access is just $3.33 a month on its annual plan, Atlas VPN charges just $1.99 a month over three years).

A new Proton Unlimited plan gets you all Proton’s services in a single subscription. That’s the full VPN, 500GB of Proton Drive’s secure storage, 15 secure Proton Mail email addresses, and end-to-end encrypted scheduling of your day with Proton Calendar.

Proton Unlimited looks reasonably priced at $11.99 billed monthly, $9.99 on the annual plan, or $7.99 over two years. If we take the last plan, that’s only an extra $3 a month for access to Proton’s other services. That’s a fair price, even if you’ll only use the storage. (Microsoft's OneDrive Standalone costs $1.66 billed annually for less features and only 100GB.)

Proton VPN will take payment via card, PayPal, Bitcoin, even cash if you're looking for extreme anonymity.

Any payments are (sort of) protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee. The potential catch here is that you'll only get a refund for any unused subscription time. If you sign up for a month and ask for a refund after 15 days, for instance, the company only returns 50% of your subscription fee.

Fortunately, Proton VPN also offers a free plan, giving you unlimited time to sample the service before you part with any cash.

This has some significant limits. It covers just one device, supports 'medium speeds' only, and gives you access to 100+ servers in just three countries (US, Netherlands, Japan).

But the crucial advantage is it has no paltry data limits: you can use Proton VPN Free as much as you like. That's a big deal, and makes Proton VPN interesting all on its own.

• We’ve also rounded up the best free VPN services

Privacy

Proton VPN's Swiss home gives it an immediate privacy advantage over most of the competition. The country has very strong privacy laws, is outside of US and EU jurisdiction, and not a member of the '14 eyes' surveillance network.

The company states its logging policy very clearly on the website: "ProtonVPN is a no logs VPN service. We do not track or record your internet activity, and therefore, we are unable to disclose this information to third parties."

Session logging is almost non-existent. The company stores the timestamp of the last successful login attempt, but that's it. This is overwritten when you next log in, so the most Proton VPN will know about your account use is the start time of your last session.

Proton VPN associates your account with an email address when you sign up, but this address can be whatever you like. The company suggests using ProtonMail if you'd prefer to remain completely anonymous.

Sign up for the free plan and you’re not asked for payment details. Choose something else and you can opt to pay by Bitcoin. Or for real anonymity, you can just send the company some cash. Not exactly convenient, but you'll know you're not leaving any electronic audit trail.

There was more good news in January 2020 when Proton VPN released the generally positive results of SEC Consult’s independent audit on its apps. We'd like to see another (three years is a long time in the VPN business), but we can wait just a little longer (and even one app audit is one more than you'll get with most providers.)

Put it all together and Proton VPN deserves huge credit for exposing itself to this level of scrutiny. There's scope to go further, so for example TunnelBear's audits don't just cover its apps; they look at its infrastructure, backend and frontend systems, even the website, and the company has re-run the audit over several years. But Proton VPN still tramples all over most of the competition, who don't have the courage to put themselves through any audit at all.

Privacy tests

Reading Proton VPN’s privacy promises and other people’s investigations is interesting, but we also like to dig into the detail, and ran some low-level tests of our own.

Proton VPN claims to have DNS leak protection, for instance, but is this really effective? We pointed the desktop and mobile apps to DNSLeakTest.com and other sites, but couldn’t discover a single leak.

Some lesser VPNs don’t set up their Windows OpenVPN connections with the most secure settings, so we dug a little deeper to see what Proton VPN was doing. The results were positive, with rock-solid AES-256-GCM encryption and HMAC-384 for authentication.

Proton VPN’s Netshield aims to block malware, ads and trackers. We don’t have a comprehensive test for it yet, but ran a quick check on its abilities by trying to access 150 common trackers. Netshield blocked 138, an excellent result.

We completed our tests with an in-depth look at the Windows app’s kill switch, and found it performed very well. The client didn't leave us exposed during normal operations, such as switching to a new server while connected to another. And if we simulated a major problem by manually closing a TCP connection or terminating a VPN process, the client instantly displayed an alert and blocked all traffic until we reconnected.

That's good news, and not just for the kill switch. The ability to cope with extreme and unexpected situations is a measure of code quality, and Proton VPN scores much better here than most of the competition.

Windows app

Signing up with Proton VPN was easy, and within a few seconds we were looking at our account dashboard. It's a handy web portal with a bunch of tools to help the user get started: login credentials, download links, an OpenVPN configuration file generator, and pointers to instructions for setting up Mac, Linux, iOS and Android devices.

We grabbed a copy of the Windows app. It downloaded and installed in seconds with no technical hassles.

The app opens with a large world map displaying Proton VPN's various locations. We don't feel map interfaces are ever as easy to use as a good location list, but Proton VPN's is better than most. The map is large, you can resize the window to get a better view, then spin the mouse wheel to zoom in and out; left-click, hold and drag to pan around; hover the mouse over a server icon to see its location, and click to get connected.

If you really don't like map interfaces, no problem, you can collapse the app down to a standard list of locations. Icons highlight servers which support P2P (17 at the time of writing) or Tor (just seven: France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US). Expanding any location lists all its available servers, with a color indicator of load (green being low, red high), and you can connect with a click.

A left-hand sidebar allows you to enable, disable, or just see the status of three valuable privacy features: the kill switch, NetShield (Proton VPN's ad, tracker and malware blocker) and Secure Core, which routes your traffic through Proton VPN's 'safest servers in privacy-friendly countries' for extra anonymity.

We found the Windows app could take more than 10 seconds to connect with WireGuard, significantly slower than usual (most VPNs connect in 1-2 seconds on the same system). This might have been some local issue, though, because the Mac and mobile apps typically connected in a couple of seconds.

Once Proton VPN connected, the service was dependable, with no connection drops during testing.

Proton VPN seems to deliver on its P2P promises. We tried accessing torrents from five of the specialist torrent servers, and downloaded them all without any issues.

City selection

Proton VPN's apps support choosing cities within many countries, but the location list makes this procedure more difficult than we'd like.

Rather than displaying a simple alphabetical list of cities (Denver, Miami, New York…), it displays every single server in that country, sorted by region or the server number. As the list isn’t in alphabetical order, you might have to scroll through hundreds of US servers to find the city you need.

Typing a city name into the Search box quickly displays any matches (entering ‘Dal’ is enough to find all the Dallas servers, for instance. But they’re sorted by server number, rather than load, so it’s not easy to find the fastest option.

A better way to go is to use the Profiles feature, which is something like a smart Favorites system. You could use this to create profiles which, say, connect you to New York or Colorado servers, but that’s just the start. You can connect to the fastest server in a country or a location, maybe choose a random server to reduce the opportunity for tracking, select the best P2P or Tor-friendly server, and even choose your preferred protocol (WireGuard, or OpenVPN TCP/UDP).

Settings

The Settings dialog allows you to enable or disable key features, configure what the Quick Connect action does (connect to the fastest location, a random server, or a specific server of your choice) and set up the split tunneling system.

The app supports WireGuard, along with OpenVPN TCP and UDP. By default, the app chooses the best protocol for your situation, but you can select your favorite manually, if you prefer.

A 'VPN Accelerator' option, turned on by default, uses various low-level tricks (threading, network optimizations) to improve performance. It also has an interesting and related option in the Settings box. 'Auto Reconnection' looks out for speed issues with your current server, and connects you to a faster one nearby when necessary. A smart idea, and not one we've seen anywhere else.

Mac and mobile apps

Proton VPN's Mac and mobile apps have very similar interfaces to the Windows edition, with much the same map, location list and Favorites-like Profiles system. They performed even better in some cases (connection times were often faster), and connections were stable during our review.

The Mac app supports all the best Proton VPN features: kill switch, Secure Core, Netshield ad-blocking, WireGuard and more. It doesn't give you split tunneling, but there's support for an extra protocol (IKEv2, as well as WireGuard and OpenVPN), and overall, the app still outperforms most of the Mac competition.

The Android app makes excellent use of screen space, portrait and landscape modes to do the best possible job of reproducing the desktop app interface. Its location list improves a little on the Windows app, sorting servers by city name rather than state. And it's powerful, too, with all the Mac features plus support for split tunneling.

Proton VPN's iOS app adds some neat visual touches to the interface. Out go the plain markers on the map, for instance, and in come colorful flags; much better. But like the desktop apps, it confusingly organizes servers by state rather than cities. This really should be consistent across the range (and we'd like it to be configurable, too).

Otherwise, though, the iOS app delivers all the Android features, plus simple iOS widgets to connect and disconnect, check battery usage or view the logs to diagnose any connection issues. If you're tired of VPNs that never quite get around to porting the best features to iOS, Proton VPN's offering will be a refreshing and power-packed change.

Performance

Our speed testing began by connecting to the fastest server from two locations (a UK data center and a US residential location, both with 1Gbps lines), then checking performance with benchmarking services including SpeedTest.net (via the website and the command line app), nPerf, SpeedOf.me and others. We repeated each test five times, ran the full set in both morning and evening sessions, then analyzed the data to compare median speeds.

WireGuard speeds were acceptable at 360-510Mbps in the UK, 460-480Mbps in the US. That’s a long way behind the speed leaders (Surfshark and TorGuard exceeded 950Mbps in recent tests), but it also beats some big names (Hotspot Shield managed 375Mbps last time), and we suspect it’s fast enough for most network setups and situations.

If you can’t use WireGuard for some reason, Proton VPN also supports the industry standard OpenVPN protocol. This isn’t anything like as speedy as WireGuard, but it still managed a very reasonable 180-210Mbps for us. 

Netflix and streaming

Proton VPN sells itself mostly on privacy and security, but it has some serious unblocking abilities, too.

BBC iPlayer has plenty of VPN defenses, for instance, but Proton VPN breezed past them all, and we were able to view its library from all three test servers.

We were just as successful with Netflix, getting access to exclusive content in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan.

Proton VPN had a couple of small issues in our regional tests. In Australia, it unblocked 9Now, but failed with 10 play. In the UK, it got us into Channel 4 without difficulty, but ‘only’ unblocked ITV in two out of three tests.

The service didn’t quite score a 100% success, then, but it still finished on a very positive note, unblocking both US Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus – a great result.

(Keep in mind that you need at least a Proton VPN Plus account to get this level of unblocking success. The free account won't do.)

Support

Proton VPN's support site has a lot of detailed articles and guides, but these aren't always organized and presented in the most helpful way.

When we searched the knowledgebase for the keyword 'speed' for instance, the first hit was titled 'How latency, bandwidth, and throughput impact Internet speed', and included the advice 'To calculate the maximum throughput on a TCP connection, you can use the Mathis formula and this online calculator.'

The second article had more relevant advice, but was complex in places. For instance, after suggesting we change servers to improve speeds, it went on: 'To be effective, you should switch to a server with an IP address from a different range. For example, instead of switching from 162.210.192.158 to 162.210.192.159, you should switch to 209.58.129.97.' It's good to see a provider which goes beyond basic FAQs, but newcomers probably won't appreciate this level of technical detail in the first documents they see.

Proton VPN also offers live chat support, though only during business hours: 9am to 5pm CET.

Our chat couldn't have gone much better. The agent was friendly, listened to our question and paid attention to our responses, asked sensible questions of their own, offered good advice, and pointed us to online resources where we could get more help.

They even offered to convert our chat into a support ticket, so that if those suggestions didn't help, we'd then be able to carry on the conversation later, without having to describe our problem all over again. Impressive.

But if live chat doesn't work for you, then you can still raise a ticket manually or send an email. Replies can take a while – we posted a simple product question at 11pm on a Saturday, and didn’t hear back until 10:25am the following Tuesday – but in our experience, responses are generally very helpful and did a good job of pointing us in the right direction.

Proton VPN review: Final verdict

Proton VPN unblocked almost everything we tried, its powerful apps are open source and independently audited, WireGuard speeds can be excellent and there's a free plan with no bandwidth limits. This is a great VPN, and it's getting better. Give it a try.

• We've also highlighted the best VPN

Private Internet Access (commonly known as PIA) is a capable VPN provider, now owned by Kape, which also owns CyberGhost, ZenMate and ExpressVPN.

The company's network has speedy 10Gbps servers spread across 84 countries, including many that are often forgotten by other providers: Bahamas, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Qatar, Sri Lanka, UAE and more.

There’s support for using the service just about anywhere, with apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and Linux, browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Opera, detailed setup tutorials for routers and other platforms, and smart DNS to unblock sites on games consoles and other devices which can’t run apps.

• Want to try Private Internet Access? Check out the website here

PIA supports connecting up to 10 devices simultaneously. That's twice the allowance you'll get with many VPNs, although Windscribe and Surfshark have no limits at all.

Extras range from the straightforward (built-in blocking of ads, trackers and known malicious websites) to the more low-level and technical: a SOCKS5 proxy for extra speed, port forwarding support, the ability to select your preferred encryption, authentication and handshaking methods, and more.

And if that sounds too complicated for you, no problem – there's 24/7 live chat support to talk you through any tricky bits.

Private Internet Access pricing

The Private Internet Access monthly plan is fair value at $11.95. The annual plan is cheaper than most at a low $3.33 a month, but opt for the three-year plan and this drops to just $2.03 ($2.19 on renewal). Putting that into perspective, Hotspot Shield’s Premium plan costs $95.99 for one year’s protection; PIA asks only $79 for your first three.

PIA offers dedicated IPs in Australia, Canada, Germany, Singapore, UK and US, and recently added Japan and Switzerland. These get you the same IP address every time you log on, and as no one shares it, you're less likely to find you're block-listed due to someone else's dodgy activities. But using the same IP also means you're more likely to be recognized by websites, so this isn't an ideal option for everyone.

Pricing for a dedicated IP is reasonable at $5 a month, $4.25 on the one-year plan, $3.75 over three years. NordVPN is a little more expensive at $5.83 a month on its annual plan, but Ivacy undercuts everyone at just $1.99 a month.

You can pay for PIA via Bitcoin if you're looking for extra privacy, or by card or PayPal, plus there are other methods depending on your region (Amazon Pay is supported in the US, for instance).

There's a free 7-day trial for mobile users, and you're also covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

PIA's Terms and Services has another surprise (and unusually for small print, it's a good one). Many VPNs say customers are only allowed one refund, ever. Private Internet Access says that if you purchase a new account more than three months after the last refund, you're eligible for another. Works for us.

Privacy and logging

Good VPN privacy starts with a strong set of core features, and Private Internet Access delivers more here than most.

PIA’s apps only use the latest and most secure protocols, for instance, in WireGuard and OpenVPN. There’s DNS leak protection, and a kill switch to disable your internet access if the connection drops. PIA’s MACE feature blocks ads, trackers, malware and more, and its Chrome extension adds a bunch of bonus privacy features (block location access, third-party cookies, website referrers and more).

The best providers show they respect your privacy, and PIA scores here, too. Many VPNs have an option to send anonymous connection data back to the company, to help improve the service. Some turn this on by default, with the VPN presumably hoping users never realize what’s happening. But with PIA, nothing gets sent unless you go into the Settings panel and turn on the feature yourself (it's the 'Help improve PIA' option in the Help area, if you're curious).

It’s important for a VPN to show transparency, to offer real evidence that it’s living up to its promises. Again, Private Internet Access has way more to boast about than many rivals.

The company’s apps are open source, allowing others to examine the source code, look for bugs, and see whether it's doing anything which might compromise the user's privacy.

To encourage experts to take a look, PIA recently announced a Bug Bounty program. If a researcher finds a genuine vulnerability and reports it to the company, they could receive up to $1,250. That's not exactly generous, because the company only pays cash for the very worst vulnerabilities (remote code execution, unlicensed access to VPN servers), and other providers offer considerably more (ExpressVPN has a $100,000 bounty for critical flaws in its TrustedServer technology.) But we're glad to see the bounty arrive: anything which encourages more experts to check the code is welcome.

PIA’s Android app is certified by the ioXt Alliance, verifying that it complies with standards in areas like cryptography, software verification and updates.

The company has a very clear logging policy, and states that the service does not ‘store or share… incoming and outgoing traffic information, including user and destination IP addresses, browsing history/ websites visited, amount of data transferred, the VPN servers used, DNS queries or files downloaded… [as well as] VPN session information, software used, connection date, and duration.’

You shouldn’t have to take the word of any VPN on trust, of course, but the big news since our last review is that’s no longer necessary.

PIA has had its no-logs policy independently audited. The company invited Deloitte to interview staff, inspect its VPN and other servers, evaluate its policies, procedures and more. Deloitte’s report found no evidence of privacy issues, and concluded that the policy was a fair description of how PIA sets up and manages its systems to prevent any logging.

That’s great news, and gives potential customers genuine reassurance that PIA really is looking after their privacy. There’s more to do – TunnelBear has its apps, servers, website, backend systems and more audited every year – but this is an excellent start, and we’ll be interested to see what PIA does next.

• Get a great deal on Private Internet Access with our exclusive offer

Performance

Every VPN promises a high-speed, ultra-reliable network, but the reality can be very different. That's why we look past the enthusiastic marketing, and put every VPN we review through our own intensive tests.

This starts by installing PIA's latest Windows app on systems in a UK data center and a US location, each with a 1Gbps connection. We connected to our nearest location, then measured download performance using several speed testing sites and services (SpeedTest's website and command line app, nPerf, SpeedOf.me and more). We ran the tests using WireGuard and OpenVPN connections, then did it all again in an evening session.

We’ve seen some disappointing results from PIA in the past, but not this time: WireGuard performance reached a solid 450-510Mbps, double what we saw in our last review. That’s still far behind the fastest VPNs (TorGuard and Surfshark hit 950Mbps+ in their last tests), but would most users really be upset if they ‘only’ got 500Mbps from their VPN? We suspect not.

WireGuard is enough for most users, but if you’re setting up PIA on a router or other device then you may have to use OpenVPN. We tested OpenVPN speeds, too, and they reached a better-than-average 180-260Mbps

Most people don’t have data center levels of connectivity or 1Gbps internet connections, so we also tested PIA’s performance from a UK home using a Three 5G broadband router. With PIA turned off, the router reached 240Mbps; with PIA turned on, it reached a relatively disappointing 83Mbps. That’s fine for browsing or streaming, but it’s also less than half of what we see from most top providers.

Netflix and streaming

Connecting to a VPN to use with Netflix or other streaming services can get you access to all kinds of geoblocked websites, hopefully avoiding those annoying 'not available in your region' error messages.

To test the unblocking abilities of Private Internet Access, we attempted to access US and other Netflix libraries, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, Disney Plus, UK’s ITV and Channel 4, and Australia’s 9Now and 10 play, from several test locations.

Accessing Netflix is a big test of website unblocking chops. PIA got us into US Netflix with one of our two test servers, and beat Netflix Canada’s defenses with one of our three locations. Not perfect, but one working location is enough, and PIA won extra credit by getting us into Netflix UK, Australia and Japan without any failures.

We saw a similar ‘that’ll do’ performance elsewhere in the US, with PIA unblocking Amazon Prime Video with one out of two test locations, but working with Disney Plus on both our tries.

Our Australian tests saw PIA finally defeated, failing to access 10 play from all three locations (although it did unblock 9Now each time).

Performance picked up in the UK, though, as PIA got us into BBC iPlayer, ITV and Channel 4.

That’s a very good result, but if you need the best possible unblocking, there are better options. ExpressVPN, Hide.me, NordVPN, PureVPN and Surfshark all unblocked every site in our most recent tests.

Torrents

Private Internet Access supports P2P, and we don't just mean on a couple of specialist servers hidden away somewhere. You can use torrents from any location, with no bandwidth or other limits to restrict your activities.

We verified this by connecting to three sample locations and successfully downloading torrents, with no connection or other issues.

There's an unusual bonus in support for port forwarding from PIA. This enables redirecting incoming connections to bypass a NAT firewall, and in some cases, may help improve P2P download speeds.

PIA’s website doesn’t offer much help with any of this. The knowledgebase does have a Torrent section, but it only has a single article on ‘How do I enable port forwarding?’, and that doesn’t even mention P2P.

Still, the company scores well on the fundamentals – large network, decent speeds, no logs, Bitcoin support – and on balance it makes a fair torrenting choice.

Client setup

Sign up for Private Internet Access and the website conveniently pointed us to download links for its many apps: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS apps, assorted browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Opera), even the raw Android file (handy for experts who need to manually install it somewhere).

There are some unusually thoughtful touches. Wondering why you should update, for instance? The site lists the changes for every new build. A recent update has broken the app? You can download previous versions, too. If only all providers were this helpful.

Windows app

The Private Internet Access app installs easily, and opens with a simple and very straightforward client window. Tap the big Connect button to hook up to your nearest server, tap it again to disconnect, and status areas tell you when you're connected, and display your original and new IP addresses.

The client's excellent and feature-packed location picker is just a click away. It lists countries and city-based locations, where available, and ping times indicate which is closest. You can sort the list by location name or ping time, and a search box plus Favorites system help you quickly find and access whatever server you need.

Looking for more functionality in the app? Clicking an arrow at the bottom of the UI displays a host of other panels you can add to its default display. A 'Quick Connect' section listed recently used servers; a Performance graph charts speeds; Usage figures listed how much data we'd uploaded and downloaded; a Subscription pane is supposed to display account information, although it was blank for us; a Connection panel displays details on your current connection (protocol, encryption algorithm and more); and finally a Snooze option enables turning off the VPN for a set number of minutes.

We thought the Quick Connect ('Recently Used') and Quick Settings panels looked most useful, and added them to the standard app display in a couple of clicks. We could even rearrange the panel positions by dragging and dropping; easy.

Maybe you're looking for simplicity more than extra features? That's possible, too. If you only ever need to connect to the nearest location, you can remove the location list and have an app which displays a Connect button only.

If you're happy with the standard interface, this may not matter very much. But if you like to tune a VPN app to suit your needs, PIA gives you far more tweaks, options and customization possibilities than we've seen from anyone else.

Windows settings

PIA's Windows app Settings dialog gives you a lot of expert-level control over how the VPN works. Choose OpenVPN rather than WireGuard, for instance, and you're able to select UDP or TCP connection types and encryption (AES-128/256-GCM), as well as choosing a custom remote port (53, 1194, 8080, 9021), and defining how your MTU is set (potentially important for connection speed and reliability).

Some locations support port forwarding, which makes it easier to set up and accept incoming connections to your system.

The app includes split tunneling, a clever feature which allows you to decide which traffic goes through the VPN, and which uses your regular connection (handy for anything which doesn't work when the VPN is active.) This is easy to use at a basic level, but also includes some unusual expert-level features, including the ability to configure split tunneling by IP address and network subnet, and even (on Windows and Linux) direct some DNS traffic outside of the VPN.

Elsewhere, a kill switch disables internet access if the VPN disconnects, reducing the chance that your real IP will be leaked. You get the option to use Private Internet Access' DNS servers, your own, or any other custom servers you prefer. And the DNS-based MACE system to block domains used for ads, trackers and malware can be enabled or disabled with a click.

VPN kill switches don't always deliver (some are almost entirely useless), so we were keen to run some in-depth tests. But whether we gently closed a couple of TCP connections or just terminated PIA's entire OpenVPN-based connection manager, the client didn't care. Each time it displayed a desktop notification to warn us of the problem, then quickly reconnected, without ever exposing our real IP.

It was the same story with WireGuard connections. No matter how brutally we dropped our connection, from closing PIA's WireGuard Windows service to turning our router off and on again, the client successfully blocked our internet access, warned us with a notification and reconnected at speed.

Our final tests put the threat blocking MACE through its paces, again with positive results. We turned it on, then tried accessing 150 common trackers. MACE blocked 111, a decent score for a bonus feature you’re essentially getting for free.

PIA's Windows VPN client for PC might look a little basic initially, then, but spend a few minutes playing around and you'll find it easy to use, with some interesting, advanced features.

• Grab Private Internet Access with a big saving in our deal here

Command line use

PIA's desktop clients now include piactl, a simple command line tool which enables using the VPN from a script.

This allows you to do all kinds of clever things which simply aren't possible with other VPNs. What about setting up a scheduled task to automatically connect at a certain time of day, for instance? Or automatically connecting when your system boots, but only after it's performed some local network tasks first? Creating special shortcuts which connect to different locations, then open a website or app you’d like to use with that country?

Getting this working could be easier than you think. The command 'piactl connect' connects you to the current default connection, for instance, while 'piactl disconnect' closes the connection. You don't need to be a developer to recognize what 'piactl set region us-atlanta' does, and there are commands to get and set more options, and monitor the service state.

Mac app

PIA's Mac app has the same stylish and appealing interface as the Windows edition. It's so easy to operate that even total VPN newbies will quickly figure out the basics: tap the Connect button to use your nearest server, choose another from the Location list if you like, and you're ready to go.

'Simple' doesn't mean 'basic', though. We immediately noticed several usability plus points, including a sortable location list, ping times to help you spot the nearest servers, and the Favorites list for storing your most commonly-used choices.

That's just the start. The app interface can be customized just like the Windows build, with panels displaying 'recently connected' lists, speed charts, upload and download data transfer figures, a Snooze option to pause the VPN connection, and more.

The real surprise here is the Settings panel, which is absolutely crammed with useful features.

These start with the app basics. You might choose a light or dark theme, or select a protocol (WireGuard or OpenVPN), or specify to launch and connect to the VPN whenever your system starts.

But there's so much more, including just about all the advanced features available on Windows. Custom DNS settings; split tunneling; proxy support; Multi-Hop VPN; a sophisticated rules-based system to automatically connect (or disconnect) when you access particular networks; and more.

Some of these options assume a lot of technical knowledge, and there's not a lot of guidance to be found in the app. We would rather have these features available than not, though, and on balance, PIA's Mac app works well. It's easy enough for beginners to use right away, yet also has the power that even the most demanding experts need.

Android app

PIA's Android VPN app opens with a very conventional interface – featuring white space, a large On/Off button, plus your chosen region and IP address – but swipe up and you'll find a mass of other buttons, icons and status details.

There are quick settings links to toggle the kill switch on and off or launch PIA's Private Browser, for instance (which is not installed by default). Or you can flag icons to quickly access a number of countries, plus there are snooze options to disconnect the VPN and automatically reconnect in 5 or 15 minutes, or an hour. And connection status details cover everything from your preferred protocol and encryption method to the amount of data you've uploaded and downloaded.

This looks a little cluttered, but as with the Windows app, it's easily customizable. If you'll never hit the Snooze button and don't need to know you're using AES-128-GCM every time you connect, you're able to hide those panels in a tap or two.

Tapping the current region displays a list of other locations. Each one has a latency figure, giving you an idea of its distance, and a simple favorites system enables moving your most-used servers to the top of the list. It's all very easy to use.

The app is surprisingly configurable, with more options and settings than many desktop VPN clients. WireGuard and OpenVPN support, auto-connect when accessing Wi-Fi, a kill switch, split tunneling – it's all here. You can even have your handset vibrate to indicate when you're connected, far more convenient than the usual notifications.

As with the desktop builds, PIA's Android app is very well put together, and a nicely judged mix of power and ease of use. Recommended.

iOS app

PIA's iOS app looks and feels much the same as the Android version. It sports a stylish interface, capable location picker with server latencies and a Favorites system, and an array of customization options to make the console look exactly as you'd like.

There are a decent set of options and settings, especially for an iOS app. You get a wider choice of protocols than the desktop builds (WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2), the ability to choose UDP or TCP connections, set a custom port, use your favorite DNS, or take fine-tuned control over encryption and enable a kill switch to protect you online.

An Automation pane makes it easy to set particular networks as trusted or untrusted, and instruct the app to automatically connect or disconnect whenever you access them.

There are a handful of useful iOS-specific features, too, including optional support for Siri shortcuts to connect or disconnect the VPN, and a Safari content blocker.

Overall, this is a quality app, easy to use and far more capable than most of the iOS competition. A must-see for more demanding Apple users.

Browser extensions

Using the Private Internet Access apps isn't difficult, but having to keep switching between your regular application and the VPN client can still be a hassle.

Like ExpressVPN and NordVPN, Private Internet Access now offers add-ons for Chrome, Firefox and Opera (there's no Edge coverage yet), enabling you to connect to the VPN directly from the browser interface. This only protects your browser traffic, but if that's not an issue, the extension makes Private Internet Access much easier to use.

The extension looks very similar to the apps, so there's almost no learning curve. A simple opening interface has a big Connect button to access the closest server. The location list reports latencies and has a Favorites system to help you find and save the best servers for later, and you turn the VPN on or off from your browser with a click.

(The location list only has around a third of the countries available in the app. We don’t know why, but just in case that matters to you, this is the current list: Austria, Australia, Brussels, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UAE, UK, USA.)

A split tunneling-type Bypass List enables specifying websites which you don't want to use the VPN. If they don't work as they should with the VPN on, add them to the Bypass List and their traffic will be rerouted through your regular connection.

Bonus privacy tools prevent websites accessing your location, camera or microphone. They're able to stop WebRTC leaks, and variously block or disable Flash, third-party cookies, website referrers, hyperlink auditing, address and credit card auto-filling, and more. Oh, and you can use PIA’s MACE to block ads, tracker and malware, too. We've seen dedicated privacy extensions which do less.

All this functionality means there are lots of settings to explore, but on balance the add-ons work very well. If you're looking for simplicity, you can just choose a location and click Connect, much like any other VPN extension. But more experienced users can head off to the Settings area, where they'll find more features and capabilities than just about any other VPN browser add-on we've seen.

Support

The Private Internet Access Support Center has a web knowledgebase with articles covering troubleshooting, account problems, technical complications and more. These don't always have the detail you'll see with ExpressVPN or NordVPN, but they're not just bland descriptions of app features, either.

For example, a ‘Security Best Practices’ article gives users some technical (but very accessible) background on encryption, authentication and handshaking methods, and more.

A Guides section has setup articles and tutorials for all supported platforms. Some of these are relatively basic, but there's still a lot to explore, with, for instance, 12 articles on Android alone.

Entering a keyword or two in the Search box gets you a list of helpful articles. This didn’t always work as expected, often displaying articles that weren’t in the current website language. But it’s improved since our last review, and you should find what you need with minimal effort.

A handy News page regularly alerts users to new servers, app updates, service issues and more. That could save you lots of hassle all on its own if you see your current problem is some known system outage, and that you don't have to spend time contacting support or trying to diagnose it yourself.

If you can't solve your issues online, PIA now offers support by live chat as well as email. We opened a chat session and asked a potentially tricky question about the old authentication and handshake options which were dropped in a previous update.

Would the agent know the product in that level of detail, especially with a change which had only just happened? Yes, pretty much – the agent didn't give us any real technical details, but explained they'd been dropped and pointed us to a support page where we could learn more. That's as good a reply as we'd expect from any provider.

Private Internet Access review: Final verdict

Private Internet Access speeds are relatively ordinary, but it excels everywhere else. PIA runs on almost anything, is easy to use, crammed with advanced features, unblocks Netflix and almost everything else we tried, and all for less than a quarter of the price of some of the top competition. Go take a look.

Surfshark is a powerful VPN which comes crammed with features, runs on almost anything, and has some of the best download speeds around.

The network has 3,200+ servers distributed across an impressive 160+ locations in 100 countries.

There are Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Linux apps, plus Chrome, Firefox and even Edge extensions, and a website unblocking Smart DNS system for games consoles, smart TVs and more.

Whatever you're using, there's no need to worry about annoying 'simultaneous connection' limits – you can install and run Surfshark on as many devices as you like.

The service is excellent on the technical essentials, including strong AES-256-GCM encryption, WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2 support, a no logs policy, and a kill switch to protect you if the VPN connection drops.

• Want to try Surfshark? Check out the website here

There's real depth here. Android apps can see through most VPNs by requesting your physical location, but not Surfshark – a GPS Spoofing feature enables it to return the coordinates of your chosen VPN server.

Oh, there’s also ad and malicious URL blocking, P2P support on most servers, VPN chaining (use two servers for one hop), split tunneling, the company's own zero-knowledge DNS servers, and 24/7 support via email and live chat if anything goes wrong.

Updates since our last review include a Pause VPN feature, which allows you to disable the VPN for a set amount of time (5, 30, 120 minutes), then automatically resume your protection. You could always disconnect manually, but then you must remember to reconnect – whereas if you use the Pause button, the app handles reconnection for you, so you can’t forget.

Linux users now have a VPN app with a full GUI, unlike most of the competition. (If other providers have Linux apps at all, they’re typically command line efforts.)

If you're using old hardware, beware: Surfshark is reducing support for legacy systems. Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 systems will no longer get the latest updates, for instance, and the company now offers full support for the last four MacOS and iOS releases only. Even if you can't update your device OS, that's not an immediate disaster, because you can still use the old apps or create manual VPN connections. But you won't get new features or security patches, and for the best service you should probably update or replace your device soon.

New support for manual WireGuard connections allows experts to precisely customize their Surfshark setup, or perhaps get the service running on a device which can’t use the regular apps.

Surfshark’s network is expanding, and the latest additions include many locations you’ll rarely see with other VPNs: Brunei, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nepal and Laos. 

Surfshark pricing

As you'll see courtesy of our dedicated Surfshark price and deals guide, the service's monthly plan is more expensive than some at $12.95.

Paying for a year upfront cuts the cost to a cheaper-than-most $3.99 a month, but that's just for the first term. It rises to $4.98 on renewal.

Surfshark's 24 months plan offers the best value at $2.05 a month. Or to talk totals: signing up for one year costs an up-front $47.88, but two years is only marginally more expensive at $59.76. But again, this is only for the first term; on renewal you switch to the regular $4.98 a month annual plan.

That initial price beats most of the competition, but there are a few exceptions. Private Internet Access' three-year plan is priced at only $2.03 a month for the first term, for instance, and has a simple on-demand antivirus thrown in.

The Surfshark One plan gives you all the same VPN features, and adds Avira-powered antivirus, data breach monitoring and privacy-friendly internet search. You can activate it for an extra $1.99 a month. Cheap? Well, it's a very basic setup. The antivirus has improved a lot recently, adding real-time scanning and even webcam hijacking protection to protect against hackers taking stealthy snaps. But you'll still get far more features and functionality from a specialist AV product.

Surfshark's 7-day free trial for Android, iOS and Mac gives you some time to sample the service for yourself. We'd like something for Windows users, too, but it seems unfair to complain when many providers have no trials at all.

Surfshark even delivers more than you'd expect with its range of payment methods, with support for credit cards, PayPal, cryptocurrencies, Amazon Pay and Google Pay.

But if, after all this, you sign up and find the company isn't for you, no problem – you're protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Privacy and logging

Surfshark's privacy features start with the VPN basics: secure protocols (WireGuard, OpenVPN UDP and TCP), AES-256 encryption, and a kill switch to block internet access and prevent identity leaks if the VPN connection ever fails.

Surfshark's network has its own private DNS on each server to reduce the chance of others spying on your activities. And the ability to use a double VPN hop (connect to Paris, say, then leave the Surfshark network in New York) makes it even more difficult for anyone to follow your tracks.

Surfshark’s excellent privacy policy explains its no-logging status clearly, with in-depth details on the data it does (and doesn't) collect, and also brief summaries if you’d prefer not to read every word. 

The key points you need to know are that Surfshark’s servers collect only a tiny amount of data during a session: your user ID, and connection time. Even these are deleted within 15 minutes of you disconnecting, and otherwise the service doesn’t log your visited IP addresses, browsing history, session information, network traffic or anything else that could link you to an internet action.

Audits

Privacy policies are important, but we don't think customers should have to take a VPN provider's words on trust. And that's why we're happy to see that Surfshark has put two areas of its service through an independent security audit.

In November 2018, the Germany security company Cure53 [PDF] put Surfshark's browser extensions under a very high-powered security microscope. The company only found a couple of small issues, and concluded that it was 'highly satisfied to see such a strong security posture on the Surfshark VPN extensions.'

That was good news in 2018, but it's less interesting years later, especially when it only examined such a limited area of the service.

In May 2021 Surfshark went further, though, reporting on a second Cure53 audit of its servers.

This audit had a much wider scope: 'To thoroughly examine and evaluate the security posture exposed by the Surfshark server, VPN configuration, as well as the related infrastructure.'

The auditors found only four security-related general issues, with a maximum severity of 'Medium.' If you're not used to reading Cure53 audits, that's not bad at all (they're exceptionally thorough and always find something).

The report concluded 'the overall outcome should be regarded as good' and Surfshark had a clear understanding of the challenges presented by VPN security.

Surfshark could have taken the audit a little further. It didn't verify Surfshark's no logging credentials, which feels like a missed opportunity. And the company has only published a summary of the report. ExpressVPN and a few others generally make their full audit reports available, and we'd like to see Surfshark do the same.

Still, we're glad to see Surfshark underwent this audit, and the conclusions look good to us.

Windows app

Surfshark's Windows app looks a little more complex than most – sporting tabs, icons, lists, and more – but it works much like any other VPN. There's a Connect button to access your nearest server, a location list showing other servers, plus a Settings icon which leads to some useful extras.

WireGuard connections are quick, and happen in just a couple of seconds, with OpenVPN taking a more mid-range 8-10 seconds. But the app keeps you informed, with desktop notifications letting you know exactly when you're protected (and when you're not).

The well-designed location picker simplifies your server browsing by displaying countries and cities in the same list. That means no switching tabs or expanding countries to view individual cities – just scroll down, and every location is visible at a glance. Surfshark spoils the effect a little by not sorting the cities alphabetically, but apart from that it works well.

Locations don't display ping times by default, but a ‘Refresh speed metrics’ feature can find and show them with a click. A Search box allows you to find specific locations with a few keypresses (typing 'atl' is enough to display Atlanta), and there's a Favorites system to save your top locations for later.

A Static IP list enables connecting to locations in Germany, Japan, Singapore, UK and the US, to receive a fixed IP from each one (that is, your IP will be from the country you choose, but it'll be the same every time you connect). That could be handy in some situations, but beware if you use it for security – perhaps to get access to an IP-restricted network. This is a static IP, but it's not a dedicated IP, just for you; any other Surfshark customer can be allocated the same IP address, so the IP alone isn't a guarantee of your identity.

A MultiHop tab passes your traffic through two VPN servers, ensuring that even if the exit server is compromised, an attacker still won't have your real IP. There are 12 routes available, where the first server is your initial connection (options include US, Canada, UK, Singapore, Germany, France, Netherlands and Australia), and the second is where you'll appear to be to the outside world (France, Germany, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, UK, US).

A Bypasser panel enables specifying applications, websites and IP addresses that bypass the VPN (an expanded version of the split tunneling feature you'll see with providers like ExpressVPN). If using Surfshark causes issues with a particular website or app, adding it to the allow list should solve the problem.

Alternatively, you're able to set the Bypasser to route only your chosen apps through the VPN. That may be more useful if you're only using Surfshark for one or two tasks, for example torrenting: set up your torrent client to connect via the VPN and everything else will use your regular connection.

There are plenty of configuration options, and they all worked well for us, plus it's great to see a VPN provider deliver this level of split tunneling support on the desktop. (Many VPNs have split tunneling-type systems on Windows – ExpressVPN, Hotspot Shield, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN – but several reserve the feature for their mobile apps).

Surfshark's CleanWeb feature blocks ads, trackers and malicious links. We tested this with 100 sample tracker links, and CleanWeb blocked 54. We’ve seen better – Windscribe’s ROBERT feature blocked 98, ProtonVPN managed 87 – but that’s enough to be useful.

A NoBorders mode aims to help you get online in China and other countries where VPNs are commonly blocked. The app should turn NoBorders on automatically if it detects any network issues, but you can enable it manually, too.

More conventional features include options to launch the VPN along with Windows, or switch the protocol to WireGuard, OpenVPN UDP and TCP, or an Automatic option which allows the app to choose. (Surfshark recently dropped IKEv2 on the Windows app, as apparently hardly anyone used it, and WireGuard and OpenVPN are better choices, anyway.)

Surfshark kill switch

A kill switch is on hand to block your internet connection if the VPN drops. This has recently been updated to make it more configurable.

Previously, when you turned on the kill switch, you couldn't access the internet at all, ever, without being connected to Surfshark. That’s highly secure, but it’s not always convenient.

Now, you can also opt for a ‘Soft’ kill switch. This kicks in if the VPN drops by accident, but doesn’t activate if you manually disconnect. That’s not quite as secure, but does mean you can choose whether you need to be connected or not.

Most providers support one kill switch type or the other, so it’s good to see Surfshark give users the choice. (Even if you think you know which option you prefer now, there’s always the chance that might change later.)

The kill switch handled our main tests well. When we tried any conventional way to close the VPN connection, the app displayed a notification to warn us, our internet was blocked, and our traffic was never exposed.

We also run more extreme tests, though. In the worst case, we found that if Surfshark’s Windows service closed, the VPN dropped, and the app didn’t notice. It continued to display a ‘Protected’ message. You could carry on using your device for hours and think you were safe, when in fact the VPN had failed and you weren’t protected at all.

It's important to keep this in perspective. We use our more extreme tests to see just how bulletproof a kill switch is, but they're not a situation you're likely to see in real life. You might use Surfshark for years without ever experiencing a service failure.

Still, this is an unnecessary issue with the app, and one which could be at least partly addressed with smarter development. ExpressVPN sets its Windows services to automatically restart if they fail, for instance, giving it a chance of recovery in even worst-case situations. Surfshark doesn’t use this standard restart feature, and that’s a problem.

Overall, Surfshark's kill switch is effective and will protect you from all the issues you're likely to encounter. But it's not quite as robust as some of the competition, and we think there's room for improvement.

Mac app

Surfshark's Mac app looks much like the Windows version, but with a few small differences. The app window isn't resizable, for instance. The app doesn’t display your kill switch status on the main Connect window, which is a shame. But it fixes one of our minor Windows app annoyances, sensibly displaying city locations in alphabetical order.

We didn't spot any significant app differences in real-world use. Connection times were speedy, and the VPN didn't drop at any point.

Mac users miss out on one or two Surfshark features. In particular, there's no Bypasser to enable choosing any apps or websites you don't want to pass through the VPN.

There's still plenty of functionality here, though: static IPs, Multi-Hop VPN, WireGuard and OpenVPN support, the kill switch, along with CleanWeb's ad and malware blocking. 

The app even has a handy feature which isn’t available on Windows, in the ability to auto-connect to the VPN whenever you access untrusted networks.

That's a much better spec than we often see elsewhere, and on balance, Surfshark's Mac offering is a well-balanced mix of power and ease of use.

Mobile apps

Mobile VPN apps can be far more basic than their desktop cousins, but Surfshark's Android version is surprisingly similar. Sure, it rearranges the interface a little to work better on smaller screens, but otherwise it has the same protocol support, kill switch, static IP, Multi-Hop and other features that we saw on the desktop.

The Android app outperforms the desktop editions in some areas, as it includes both the 'auto-connect on accessing untrusted networks' feature (not available on Windows), and the split tunneling Bypasser system (not available on Mac).

You get a couple of new mobile-specific features, one of which is an 'Override GPS location' to match your device's GPS location with your connected VPN server, making it more difficult for apps to see where you really are. And a 'use small packets' option may improve performance with some mobile networks.

If any of this doesn't work as it should, you can send bug reports, and raise (or browse) tickets from within the app (no need to open your browser and waste time hunting for the right area of the support site).

It's much the same story with Surfshark's iOS VPN app: the look and feel are very similar, and you still get the kill switch, the choice of protocols (OpenVPN, IKEv2, WireGuard) and more.

Small but welcome recent additions include widgets to simplify getting connected, and the ability to report bugs from within the app.

It's a surprisingly capable setup, as software for Apple’s mobile OS is often short-changed for features in comparison to other platforms.

Put it all together and these are impressive apps, well implemented, straightforward to use, and a refreshing change for anyone tired of losing VPN functionality on mobile devices.

Performance

We measured Surfshark performance from a US location and a UK data center with a 1Gbps connection, giving us plenty of scope to see just what the service could do.

We installed the latest Surfshark app on our test systems, connected to our nearest location, and checked download speeds using performance testing sites including SpeedTest (the website and command line app), nPerf and SpeedOfMe. We collected at least five results from each site using WireGuard, repeated each test again with OpenVPN, and ran the full test set in both morning and evening sessions.

Surfshark’s WireGuard speeds were spectacular at 950Mbps+, all we could expect from our 1Gbps test connection. That puts Surfshark equal first in our speed tests along with Norton and TorGuard.

Surfshark uses WireGuard by default and the chances are you’ll never need anything else. But if it can’t connect, or you’re setting the service up on a router or some other device, you might need to use OpenVPN. We found Surfshark’s OpenVPN connections reached 120-190Mbps in the US, a little below average, but enough for most online tasks.

Netflix and streaming

If you're tired of VPNs which vaguely hint about their unblocking abilities, but never make any real commitment, you'll love Surfshark. The company not only promises to unblock Netflix, it also names a bunch of other services it supports: ‘Prime Video, Disney Plus, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, Hulu, Hotstar, YLE Areena, AbemaTV, and many others.’

This wasn't just overblown marketing-oriented confidence, either. We were able to access Netflix in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan without the slightest hassle.

The good news continued in the UK, with Surfshark getting us into BBC iPlayer, ITV and Channel 4. It allowed us to stream Australia’s 9Now and 10 play from the UK just as easily. And final success with both US Amazon Prime and Disney Plus gave Surfshark a perfect 100% record in our unblocking tests.

That's a great result which puts Surfshark right up there with the very best unblocking VPNs. At the moment, that includes ExpressVPN, Hide.me, NordVPN and PureVPN, all of which have got us into every one of our test streaming sites.

Support

If Surfshark doesn't work for you, the support site has setup and installation tutorials, troubleshooting guides, FAQs and other resources to point you in the right direction.

The content is well-organized. Clicking 'Get Started' takes you to a Tutorials page with articles on setting up the apps, getting the service working on other platforms and using its various features.

These aren't the horribly basic 'download and run the installer' guides you'll get from lesser VPNs, either. For example, the 'How To Set Up Surfshark on Windows' article includes a video guide, step-by-step installation advice with screenshots, plus first steps guidance on choosing locations and getting connected, and basic explanations of all the main features.

If this isn't enough, Surfshark's support is available 24/7 via live chat. We tried this while attempting to diagnose a connection issue, and had a friendly reply in under 60 seconds. So, if you're struggling to find something on the website, it might be worth opening a chat session – the problem could be sorted out quicker than you might think.

Surfshark review: Final verdict

We have some small issues with the apps and Windows kill switch, but Surfshark excels everywhere else, providing market-leading speeds, top-notch unblocking and an array of advanced features for a very fair price. Great value and an absolute must for your VPN shortlist.

Based out of the United Arab Emirates, IPRoyal is a tried and tested proxy service provider that offers a range of proxy solutions, including residential, datacenter, 4G mobile, and sneaker proxies among its over 8 million IPs. Its residential proxy solutions stand out as enticing, and its prices are among the most attractive out there. 

In saying that, not all proxy providers are equal, and we wondered how well IPRoyal stacks up against the competition. We’ve since spent hours analyzing its services, and now present our findings in this IPRoyal review.

IPRoyal: Plans and pricing

IPRoyal offers several subscription options. Its top-end residential proxy service starts from $7 per GB of bandwidth, and includes a rotating IP address, SOCKS5 support, city/state targeting, and API access . Static residential proxies start at $2.70 each per 30 days, are not shared, have 99.9% uptime, and come with unmetered bandwidth. 

Sneaker proxies  are specifically designed to help you make fast or multiple purchases on sneakers and other products like concert tickets that are likely to sell out within minutes of their release. These start at $1 per proxy for 24 hours of use, and $1.80 per proxy for 30 days. 

The 4G mobile proxies (from $81 per month with a 90 day commitment) are limited, with only Lithuanian, US, and UK locations available among the 1+ million proxies. Finally, access to datacenter proxies starts as little as $9 per month for five proxies, with a 50-proxy package coming in at $83.50 per month. 

IPRoyal: Features

IPRoyal’s versatile proxy solutions are backed by a selection of valuable features. Here are a few of the most noteworthy.

Browser proxy managers

IPRoyal has useful browser extensions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. These come with a suite of management tools that enable you to switch between proxies, configure your existing proxies with profiles that can be easily switched out- without changing the OS, and create rules about how each proxy is used. 

Wide country selection

One thing that stands out about IPRoyal’s services is that it offers proxies in almost every country on Earth. These geo-specific proxies are excellent for bypassing geo-blocking restrictions, enabling access to content from other regions.

In more detail, IPRoyal offers over 2 million "ethically sourced" proxies in 195 countries, as well as another 6 million IPs through datacenters and sneaker proxies. The top countries for proxies are the US, Germany, UK and France. 

Free proxies

IPRoyal also provides a tidy list of free proxies you can use if you’re on a tight budget. The list is updated every 10 minutes, and you will usually find thousands of different options to choose from; we found over 6800 when we looked, and they were located in many different countries. Although free proxies can be used in a pinch, they’re typically slower, not as secure, and could be used by malicious third parties to collect sensitive personal data. 

IPRoyal: Interface and in use

The IPRoyal interface is user-friendly, so you shouldn’t have too many issues in getting it up and running. On the left of the main screen, you will find links to each of the company’s five products, namely the different types of proxies. Following them enables you to manage your subscriptions, create new proxies, and find useful information about each type.  

There’s also a settings area, where you can update general settings. Adding funds to your account is a straightforward process via the Deposit tool. On the downside, there’s no mobile app for proxy management. Be aware that this company offers its IPRoyal Pawns app that enables you to earn passive income by sharing your internet connection, which is where the mobile proxies come from. 

IPRoyal: Support

IPRoyal provides around the clock 24/7/365 live chat and email support, and support agents are responsive and knowledgeable. The support email is even prominently featured on the home page, along with the chat box making them easy to find. We tested the live chat, and the agent we were connected to was able to answer our questions within a couple of minutes. However, for those that want other direct support options, such as telephone, or fax, those are not there. 

A downside to support options is the lack of self-help resources. There are a few useful articles outlining basic setup procedures and other common tasks on the IPRoyal blog, but there’s no dedicated help center, user forum, webinars, ebooks, whitepapers or dedicated knowledge base.

IPRoyal: Security

IPRoyal is a top-rated proxy provider, and performs well on the security front. For starters, IPRoyal offers HTTP and HTTPS proxies with different levels of encryption.

What’s more, IPRoyal’s proxies provide a high level of anonymity to the user, preventing other entities from tracking your internet use. This can also help protect your sensitive information and data from prying eyes. Plus, two-factor authentication is available to protect your account from an attack by a hacker, or other type of breach event..

Alternatives to IPRoyal

IPRoyal is an attractive low-cost option, but a few alternatives may certainly be worth considering. 

For example, Smartproxy has a pool of more than 50 million residential IPs and various browser extensions. However, it’s an expensive option, with the cheapest plan starting at $80 per month. 

Another popular option is Bright Data (formerly Luminati), which claims to have an IP network covering every country and city on Earth. This includes a considerable pool of 72 million+ IP addresses. What’s more, Bright Data provides excellent documentation that makes it super easy to use along with 24/7 support.  

Final verdict

IPRoyal is an attractive low-cost proxy provider that offers a versatile selection of different proxies. These include top-end residential proxies, datacenter proxies, and even niche-specific sneaker proxies that some other proxy providers do not offer. 

Its user interface is beginner-friendly and easy to get the hang of, and support services are exceptional. On the downside, limited self-help documentation means you may have to reach out to the IPRoyal team if you have significant issues, but thankfully it is available 24/7. Overall, IPRoyal is an excellent option worth considering for an array of different use case scenarios. 

To find out more, see our guide to the best proxies available. You might also like to read our guide to sneaker proxies, or find out the difference between residential and datacenter proxies.

The Simbatex Foam Mattress was added to the Simba range in September 2022, with a four-layer, foam-only design that's available in two variants – the Simbatex Foam (which we're reviewing here) and the Simbatex Essential Foam, which is a pared-back, even cheaper version.

As an all-foam option, the Simbatex branches away from the hybrid models the brand has built its reputation on. Our favourite of those, which you can read about in our Simba Hybrid Pro mattress review, sits high up in our best mattress ranking. But it's a lot more of an investment than the Simbatex, so we were excited to try this new addition out and see how it holds up. Read on for our full Simbatex Foam mattress review.

Simbatex Foam Mattress review in brief

• Does a great job of keeping sleepers cool
• Good motion isolation but edges dip and slope a little
• Perfect choice for those who like a firm mattress

The Simbatex Foam Mattress may be at the cheaper end of Simba's lineup but that doesn't mean the brand has skimped on materials. The all-foam construction includes Simba's proprietary Simbatex foam – an open-cell structure foam that encourages airflow and is infused with graphite particles to filter heat away. Simba says it provides 30 times more airflow than traditional memory foam and, for an all-foam mattress, we agree that the Simbatex Foam Mattress keeps sleepers impressively cool at night.

The mattress is far firmer than a traditional memory foam mattress, making it a great choice for back and stomach sleepers as well as heavier weight sleepers, who should feel supported without sinking too far into the foam. That's not to say that it will suit everyone. Side sleepers will most probably find it too firm, with a lack of adequate pressure relief at the shoulders and hips. And our lightweight tester found the mattress too firm overall, feeling as if they were lying on top of it rather than being supported.

Simba offers a year-long mattress trial period, giving you plenty of time to decide if it's right for you. Overall, we think this is a well-made and comfortable firm bed that belies its relatively low-price tag. We'll expand on all these points throughout the rest of our Simbatex Foam mattress review.

Simbatex Foam Mattress review: price and deals

• Simba's second cheapest mattress
• All sizes often reduced by up to 40%
• Not as cheap as some all-foam mattresses

Although the Simbatex Foam Mattress isn't Simba's cheapest mattress, it's extremely well priced for a firm mid-range mattress. The RRP for a UK double is £799, with other mattresses of comparable firmness often coming in at over £1,000. Simba mattress sales of 40% off are a fairly regular occurrence, so you shouldn't have to pay that RRP if you buy at the right time (the Black Friday mattress deals are an especially good time to buy). 

Here's the official pricing for the Simbatex Foam Mattress in the UK:

• Single RRP: £679 (usually £539.40)
• Small Double RRP: £799 (usually £407.40)
• Double RRP: £799 (usually £479.40)
• King RRP: £899 (usually £539.40)
• Super King RRP: £999 (usually £599.40)

The Simbatex's closest rivals are probably the Emma Original and the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress. The price for a UK double from both these brands isn't dissimilar to the Simba, with the Emma coming in at £759 (RRP) and the Nectar at £879 (RRP). And, as with the Simbatex Foam Mattress, you'll see regular mattress sales from both these brands.

Simbatex Foam Mattress review: materials

The Simbatex Foam Mattress is, as the name suggests, made entirely of foam. Simba is better known for hybrids – in fact, it has even put springs in one of its pillows (read about it in our Simba Hybrid Firm pillow review). 

There are four layers in the mattress, which is a relatively small number of layers for a Simba model. However, the mattress is solidly constructed and doesn't feel lacking in support. Simba's all-foam construction is different to the best memory foam mattresses on the market, so let's look at what it's made up of. 

The mattress is wrapped in an anti-allergy removable knitted cover that's incredibly soft to the touch and to lie on. It's also got a zip for easy removal and washing (a removable cover is fairly rare in cheaper mattresses, so this is a welcome addition). Beneath that is a layer of CertiPUR Simbatex foam, with an open cell structure to circulate airflow and infused with graphite to help keep sleepers cool at night.

Underneath is the Simba-Response foam layer, which gives the mattress its support and also helps to maintain airflow. Last up is the high-density foam base, providing zoned pressure relief and structure to the whole mattress.

Simbatex Foam Mattress review: firmness and comfort

• A firm mattress with a rating of 7.5 out of 10
• Provides great pressure relief for back and front sleepers
• Zoned support helps to keep your spine aligned

When we first tried the Simbatex Foam Mattress we were surprised by how firm it was, as we were expecting an all-foam mattress to be softer. The feel of the Simbatex Foam Mattress did take a little getting used to.

We asked a variety of testers to try out the mattress of different body weights and with varied sleeping positions. Our two main reviewers were of light and average weight respectively.

Our average weight reviewer found the mattress incredibly supportive as a back sleeper and noted the softer support at the shoulders. They felt that the mattress moulded well to their body and that their hips, back and shoulders were cradled with excellent pressure relief. They were also delighted by how cool the mattress kept them as a generally hot sleeper. The cooling properties of the foam do an excellent job of keeping sleepers cool at night.

However, our lighter weight tester felt that the mattress was too firm for them and that they were lying on top of it, rather than sinking in slightly and being supported. It was also too firm for dedicated side sleepers, who felt too much pressure on their shoulders and hips.

Those with a heavier body weight were pleasantly surprised by how supported they felt, although we wouldn't recommend the mattress for individual sleepers over 18 stone (although the mattress will happily support two separate sleepers of up to 18 stone). Of course, firmness and comfort are subjective, which is why the long trial period with Simba's mattresses is so useful.

Simbatex Foam Mattress review: performance

• Good motion isolation
• Edge support isn't great, with the mattress sloping at the edges
• Keeps sleepers cool throughout the night

We slept on a single size mattress for just under a month, looking at all the major areas of performance. We rated it on pressure relief, motion isolation, edge support, cooling and ease of set up; all of which should help you to decide if this is the right mattress for your sleeping style.

It's difficult to gauge the durability of a mattress after only sleeping on it for a short amount of time and, with the mattress being relatively new, there aren't any long-term reviews on the subject either. However, with the quality of the foams used and judging by the durability of other mattresses in the Simba range, we think the Simbatex Foam Mattress will last well. (Read our Simba Hybrid Pro review for a closer look at that one.)

Setup

Score: 4.5 out of 5

The Simbatex Foam Mattress was incredibly simple to set up. The mattress arrived rolled in a box and, as it was a single, was easy for one tester to move around. However, if you've ordered a king or super king, we think you'd need two people to move it around and avoid injuring yourself. Inside the box, the mattress is vacuum packed into a bag.

Lay the mattress on the bed before cutting the plastic, as this will break the vacuum seal and make the mattress expand. We found this process painless and the mattress was, as Simba suggested, ready to sleep on in three to six hours. The mattress did continue to expand a little over the next couple of days, but it's fairly minor compared to the initial rise.

Off-gassing

Score 4.5 out of 5

Off-gassing, where organic chemicals and gases are released from the foam as a mattress expands, is normal and to be expected when buying a mattress in a box. The chemical-like odour that's produced can last several days with some mattresses.

However, the Simbatex Foam Mattress isn't one of them. We noticed a slight odour on taking the mattress out of the box and packaging, but this dissipated quickly over a few hours and wasn't never too strong to begin with. It was certainly produced some of the least amounts of off-gassing in mattresses we've tested.

The Simbatex Foam Mattress is made from CertiPUR approved foams, which are made without mercury, lead and other heavy metals, carcinogenic chemicals and phthalates.

Pressure relief

Score: 4 out of 5

To test the sinkage of the Simbatex Foam Mattress we placed a 20kg weight in the middle of the bed, where the mattress sank by 3.75 inches. Surprisingly, considering that the edges slope and dip a little, the mattress sank by exactly the same amount at the edges. Placing a hand into the mattress, the foam sprang back extremely quickly.

The above fits well with our assessment of the mattress as firm, but how did it translate when it came to pressure relief for our testers? Our average weight tester felt that their pressure points were well supported on the mattress. They mainly sleep on their back and felt that their spine was kept well aligned throughout the night. Heavier weight sleepers also felt supported – both on their back and front. We wouldn't recommend the mattress for lighter weight sleepers, as they're likely not to sink in far enough for decent pressure relief and the mattress is too firm for side sleepers. We'd recommend the Nectar Memory Foam mattress if you sleep on your side, as the mattress is softer.

Motion transfer

Score 4.5 out of 5

If you share your bed with a restless sleeper, a mattress that absorbs motion transfer can be a godsend. We performed a simple drop test with a 6kg weight and an empty wine glass to see how well the mattress isolated motion.

We dropped the weight from around 4-5 inches above the mattress at various distances from the wine glass, getting closer in increments to see whether the wine glass wobbled or fell over. At 25 inches there was absolutely no movement from the glass and at 10 inches there was a little bounce, but the glass remained upright. The glass fell over at 5 inches, but fairly gently.

We weren't particularly surprised that the wine glass remained fairly stable as the Simbatex Foam Mattress is made entirely of foam. However, because it is such a firm mattress there was a little bounce with a lighter weight object.

Temperature regulation

Score 5 out of 5

We tested the Simbatex Foam Mattress with a 4.5 tog summer duvet and a fleece blanket in a bedroom that was around 15C. Our tester who tends to sleep hot in most mattresses found that the Simbatex kept them cool throughout the night, with them waking at a pleasant temperature.

This is largely due to the cooling materials used in the mattress. Simba use open cell foam that circulates 30x more airflow than traditional memory foam mattresses and it's also infused with heat absorbing graphite to keep the mattress breathable and cooling. If you're a hot sleeper we'd certainly recommend this mattress over other foam mattresses such as the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress and the Emma Original.

Edge support

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Decent edge support on a mattress not only increases the sleeping surface of a mattress, but also helps you get in and out of the bed alongside providing a stable surface to sit on whilst getting dressed. Unfortunately this was one area where the Simbatex Foam Mattress fell a little short.

Although our heaviest weight of 20kg didn't sink any further at the edges than in the middle of the mattress (3.75 inches), we noticed a little dip and slope at the edges of the mattress. It's noticeable when you're sitting on the edge of the bed, but it isn't so bad that you'll feel like you might slide off.

The slight dip and slope is also noticeable if you sleep right up to the edge of the mattress and this does reduce the sleeping area slightly. If you're sharing your bed with a partner, we would recommend investing in a slightly larger size if you're a fan of spreading out through the night.

Durability

Whilst it's difficult to gauge the durability of a mattress after just under a month sleeping on it, we feel that the Simbatex Foam mattress should perform well for years to come. This is a well-made mattress, using high-quality foams and a well-fitting, removeable cover that can be bunged in the washing machine to freshen up. Simba is clearly confident about the Simbatex's durability with a yearlong trial and a 10-year warranty on offer.

You can help keep the mattress in good condition by investing in one of the best mattress protectors available and cleaning the mattress regularly (see our guide on how to clean a mattress for more help on this). 

Simba also recommends you rotate your mattress once a month for the first three months of its life and then every three to six months after that.

• Read more: How often should you rotate or flip your mattress

Simbatex Foam Mattress: customer reviews

As the Simbatex Foam Mattress has only been on the market for a short while, there are only a very small handful of customer reviews available. Of the three reviews left by customers so far, all three left 5 out of 5-star reviews.

These reviewers all raved about the comfort of the mattress and how much better they slept, with the heat regulation technology being popular as well. And one reviewer also reported no longer having back pain. These early reviews would indicate that this is, so far, a popular mattress with customers and their reports mirror much of what we feel about the mattress.

Should you buy the Simbatex Foam Mattress?

The Simbatex Foam Mattress belies its cheaper price tag in our opinion, offering a great night's sleep for back and front sleepers. Average and heavier weight sleepers will feel supported and cushioned, with excellent pressure relief at the shoulders, back and hips.

The mattress also does a great job of keeping sleepers cool at night, with its open cell foam structure infused with graphite. Its heat regulation technology does a great job throughout the night, making this a great choice for those who sleep hot.

Simba uses Certi-PUR non-toxic foams and all their mattresses are 100% recyclable. They're also made in the UK (or in local factories if you're buying in other countries) and all deliveries are carbon neutral. However, if you're after a thoroughly eco-friendly mattress, the more expensive Simba GO Hybrid mattress is as green as they come, with organic latex rather than memory foam, and it's 100% recyclable as well as providing excellent pressure relief, although it may be too soft for front and heavier weight sleepers. See our Simba Hybrid GO review to learn more.

We wouldn't recommend this mattress to lighter weight or side sleepers. Instead, the Nectar Foam Mattress is a great choice for side sleepers, allowing them to sink further into the mattress and feel supported at pressure points. If you'd prefer a slightly softer mattress overall the DreamCloud Luxury Hybrid has softer foam and springs to provide a more cushioned feel.

First reviewed October 2022

In this Stellar Data Recovery review, we’ve examined every aspect of one of the best data recovery software programs in the world. 

In short, Stellar Data Recovery enables users to retrieve deleted, lost, and unavailable objects from a hard drive, USB stick, or almost any other storage device. What’s more, it’s very popular and comes with a suite of high-end tools.

Stellar Data Recovery: Plans & pricing

There are four Stellar Data Recovery plans available, with prices ranging from free to $99.99. The free plan includes standard file recovery tools, but users can only retrieve up to 1GB of data. If you need to retrieve a larger files, you can upgrade from within the program. 

Paid subscriptions start from $59.99 per year for a Standard plan, which includes everything in the free plan along with unlimited data recovery. Those with more advanced needs will benefit from one of the will need to upgrade.more advanced Stellar Data Recovery subscriptions. 

These include Stellar Data Recovery Professional ($89.99), which has all the features of Standard, as well as the ability to recover files from lost partitions, support for unbootable system recovery and retrieving deleted files from CDs and DVDs.

The top "Premium" Tier costs just ten dollars more at $99.99 and includes the ability to repair corrupted photos and videos. 

Each option adds more advanced tools than the one before it, and the developers encourage you to download the free trial to see if you can preview lost files before paying, so there's no obligation when you install. 

There is also Stellar Data Recovery for Mac. There's a free version, which like the Windows version allows you to recover up to 1GB of data. The "Standard" version is $69.99, while Stellar Data Recovery Professional and Premium cost the same as their Windows counterparts and have the same features.

There's also a "Technician" version for macOS, which costs $149. This has the same features as Stellar Data Recovery Premium but can be installed on up to 3 separate Macs. 

All prices quoted are per year, though it's also possible to buy a lifetime licence. 

Stellar Data Recovery: Features

As we've learned, Stellar Data Recovery is available on both Windows and Mac operating systems. As one of the top hard drive data recovery tools available, it includes powerful features to improve the user experience. 

Stellar Data Recovery's website claims it enables the retrieval of all file formats, including custom ones. This said, there are only certain types of files that can be previewed from within the app itself. Naturally the fact you can't preview a file doesn't necessarily mean you can't recover and open it in a different program. 

Data can be recovered from a computer’s hard drive, external drive, memory card, flash drive, and optical media like CDs and DVDs, among others. 

In addition, Stellar Data Recovery works with both non-bootable and encrypted drives. RAID and virtual drive recovery are also supported, and professional versions of the software can even repair corrupted photo and video files.

Stellar Data Recovery: Client and client setup

Installing Stellar Data Recovery in Windows 11 only took us a couple of minutes. The installer itself weighs in at less than 5MB and it then downloads the remaining files it needs. 

On the initial user dashboard, you can select what sort of files (photo, video, etc.) you would like to retrieve. This is useful if you’re looking for a specific file or file type. You can also select what drive and location you want to search, further streamlining the process.

The layout is extremely clear and intuitive. In fact, we noticed it was strikingly similar to the interface of another tool we reviewed: Ontrack EasyRecovery. 

Meanwhile, there are numerous advanced options that can be tweaked to optimize performance. For example, you can specify exactly what file extensions you’re looking for. 

New file types can be added if necessary, and safe mode can be activated if you’re concerned about security. More advanced tools are available with higher-end plans.

Stellar Data Recovery: How we tested

For our data recovery tests we used a virtual machine with a clean install of Windows 11 with the free version of Stellar Data Recovery.The only third-party tools installed besides the utility itself were VLC Media Player and GIMP. 

Data files

The files we chose for recovery are an album of Mozart's Music available from the Internet Archive. 

We did this as we wanted to see how the utility performed with a wide variety of files.The album included 4 music files (2 in Mp3 and 2 in FLAC) format, 6 JPG image files of album covers (with thumbnails) and 4 PNG image files. The files also included 2 XML files, a torrent file and an 'SQLite' file containing details of the album. There were 25 files in total. 

We copied the files in the music album to a 512MB virtual NTFS-formatted hard drive, which was then attached to the Windows 11 virtual machine.

Data tests

The tests were performed one after the other on three separate virtual drives:

1. File deletion: the album files were simply deleted from the drive and the Recycle Bin emptied. No other data was copied to the drive. We then tried to recover the files. 

2. Delete & format: The files were deleted as outlined above and we also performed a 'Quick Format' using the 'Disk Management' utility built into Windows 11. We then tried to recover the files from the formatted partition. 

3. Recover corrupted files: We used the freeware program 'Victoria' to overwrite the volume header of the drive containing the files with zeroes. The drive didn't mount automatically in File Explorer and showed as being unpartitioned in Windows "Disk Management" utility. We then checked if the utility could see it and if so, recover the files. 

We do not believe that running data recovery tools in a virtual environment has a significant effect on how they function. Still, if you're considering buying software we encourage you to read all reviews thoroughly and make sure that the developer offers a refund policy.

Stellar Data Recovery: Performance

Both in October 2022 and when we ran our most recent tests, Stellar Data Recovery's "quick scan" was able to detect lost files in seconds. 

There is also a "deep scan" feature, which we used last time though it consumed significantly more RAM and a similar amount of CPU and took over 12 hours. However, it did retrieve a lot more data—125GB compared to 88GB with the quick scan.

Previously, when we tried Stellar Data Recovery on a Windows 10 laptop with 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive, a quick scan of our hard drive took less than four minutes. However, it did use 200MB of RAM and approximately 75% CPU. 

This high CPU usage is not unusual for data recovery software, so it's best not to use it alongside other resource-intensive applications.

Still, we were very impressed by the low footprint of the most recent version of the utility. 

In the very first test of files that had simply been deleted from a drive, it completed the scan in under 2 seconds. A total of 37 files were found across 10 folders, including the original 25 deleted files. These opened perfectly in Stellar Data Recovery's "Preview" Pane. The remaining data were system files.

Our next test was performed on the drive where the files had been deleted, after which we'd formatted the partition. The "quick" scan in this case found 13 system files but none of the deleted media. We selected the "Deep Scan" option but the utility froze at 99% whilst trying to scan a particularly nasty data cluster.

We ran into similar difficulties in our final test, which was of a drive with a corrupted volume header. The good news is that although the drive wasn't visible in Explorer, it appeared immediately in Stellar Data Recovery as a "Lost Partition". Next, we tried to scan it only for the utility to freeze at 96%. 

After rebooting, the scan went off without a hitch showing that 20 of the 25 files had been recovered. The missing files included the two FLAC audio files, the two XML files and the torrent file. In fairness these file formats aren't specifically listed as being supported by Stellar Data Recovery but they were visible in our first test.

At this stage we'd run up against the 1GB limit for the free version of the utility, so used it's 'Preview' feature to examine the files to find the remaining 20 all opened without issue. 

Stellar Data Recovery: Efficiency

Retrieving lost files can be difficult, but Stellar Data Recovery did a great job. In our first test it recovered all the files we'd intentionally deleted and it recovered all but the rarest file types from the lost partition. 

Still, it's clear that the utility supports a huge number of file formats, and custom types can be added with the advanced options menu. 

For our most recent test, we deliberately chose a small number of files as in our previous benchmark the number of retrieved was over half a million. If this happens to you, rest assured that  files can be sorted by file type, size, and location. There's also a search bar. As always it's best to preview files from within the app before restoring, to save cluttering up your hard drive. 

Stellar Data Recovery: Support

Stellar Data Recovery users have access to phone, live chat, and online ticket support. Phone support is available worldwide, but only in English. We tested the live chat briefly and were connected with a friendly, knowledgeable agent within a minute. 

There are also a few different self-help options available. The FAQ section provides simple answers to common questions, and the comprehensive knowledge base contains excellent step by step instructions on how to perform basic tasks like data recovery as well as helpful information like which file formats are supported by preview. 

Stellar Data Recovery: The competition

There are numerous alternatives to Stellar Data Recovery which could better fit your needs. For example, the Ashampoo Undeleter is significantly cheaper (just $14.99 for a lifetime license) and is great for simple file recovery. 

Data Rescue 5 is a more expensive alternative (starting at a $99 one-off payment for five recovery drives), but it comes with a selection of powerful features comparable to those of Stellar Data Recovery.

Stellar Data Recovery: Final verdict

Overall, Stellar Data Recovery is a great file retrieval tool with powerful advanced options for business. In its simplest form, it enables anyone to retrieve lost data from a computer or external storage device. 

It has performed well in our benchmarks, with our only real criticism being that deep scans can be slow or buggy. Still, this is par for the course when it comes to trying to retrieve fragments of deleted data. 

Paid subscriptions are a little expensive, but the program’s impressive performance and user-friendly interface mean that it gets a thumbs up from us. We also appreciate the fact that the developers allow you to try out the premium versions of Stellar Data Recovery free of charge and preview recovered files before you make a decision to buy. 

We've listed the best free data recovery software and the best data recovery service.